what the heck is going on? (account bannings)

[Poo]

so i log onto icq today and there waiting for me is a icq from a guild mate and very good personal friend.

she had one of her accounts banned.

wow.
i was shocked.
ive played with this person for a couple years now and out of all of us she is the grandmother of the group (besides the fact that is actually IS a grandmother!)

so what has this to do with me.
well, a lot.

this is how it goes.
a year or so ago my sonoma faction guild decided that we where gonna start going from shard to shard and doing factions. So this guild mate of ours took up the role of holding the houses for us on all the shards we where going too.
so we came to Napa, played factions, then left after we where done.
that was a couple months ago that we left and moved on.
so now all of a sudden she gets this email saying account banned house go BOOM.

what the hell.
hahhahaha, like seriouslly, if ya heard this frail old lady in team speak knitting away and drinking honeyed tea youd be laughing your asses of right now!

here is a direct quote from her letter.

Thank you for contacting Ultima Online Support.

I am very sorry to hear of your account being terminated. However, you were found to be in possession of a multitude of highly illegal items in Ultima Online. Due to the severe nature of this ToS violation, your account was terminated. Sufficient evidence was verified to justify this termination.

Please be advised, we cannot give specific detailed information as to what items were in possession but be assured that we have fully investigated each case separately and found your account to be in violation.

in possession of a multitude of highlly illegal items.

this is what worries me.

'YOU WHERE IN POSSESSION OF A MULTITUDE OF HIGHLLY ILLEGAL ITEMS' now i know for a fact that my guild mate purchased all of her equiptment.
as with most of us who work full time jobs and have way too much money burning a hole in our pockets its easyier to just pay $50 to a merchant and get 70 mill and go buy all the equiptment that you need on that shard to make and use on our characters.

i know thats what i do.
i make big money. i dont think anything about dropping money to get gold in game and buy up enough gear to suit up 10 or 15 guys on a new shard.

so why does this worry me?
cause i know for a fact that she purchased all of her equiptment from venders in luna.
the same as i did.
the same as the other members of out guild did.

so this could have been me 'IN POSSESSION OF A MULTITUDE OF HIGHLLY ILLEGAL ITEMS', jesus, i probablly AM in possession of a multitude of highlly illegal items because i buy a LOT of stuff in game, im serious, we went to what 8 shards over the last year and on each of those shards i spent probablly 50 mill on items, so do the math.
artys where cheap last year.
you could get pretty much any arty for under a mill on the bigger shards.
so say i probablly have 50 artys on 10 production shards each.
how do i know which ones are duped?

bloody hell!
if i turned on my game and got banned like she did id be sitting in a cabin in montana making up some real nice packages to mail to EA i tell ya.

there has to be something that EA can do.
arbitrarilly going along and banning people just because they purchase items is unrealistic, to the extreem.

hell, ill PAY to have EA come and go thought my accounts and take OUT the duped items just so i dont have to worry about getting banned in this ******** witch burning inquest they have going on!!!!

and i am 100% serious about this.

ILL PAY MONEY FOR EA TO COME AND GO THOUGH MY ACCOUNTS AND REMOVE THE DUPED ITEMS THAT IM SURE I HAVE PURCHASED UNKNOWINGLLY OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS!!!!!

that is a sad statment to have to make.
sad times that we live in where we have to live in fear of plaing the game and buying stuff from venders under pains or fear of getting banned because of our purcheses.

infact, i find it immpossible to think that i havnt inadvertantlly purchased duped artys if my guildmate has, so if for some strange twist of fate my accounts live through this witch hunt im vowing to never..... ever... buy any item off a vender again.

death to UO in game economy.

 

[gjohnson5]

EA doesn't think
Many people bought items with real money
So ban them too???
LOL @ banning people who had money to spend on in-game items

It proves they cannot manage the situation

 

[Radun]

stop duping

 

[Poo]

stop duping.


hahhahahaha

i dont think the people that dupe are concerned about who gets banned down the road.

i think they are only concerned with immediate profits.

of course i could be wrong and the dupers could be sitting there right now, head in hands crying as they rock back and forth, screaming up to the sky..... why...... why god have i done this!!!!!

somehow..... no.
i think not.

 

[gjohnson5]

The game needs to be sold to someone with half a brain apparently

 

[packrat]

bloody hell!
if i turned on my game and got banned like she did id be sitting in a cabin in montana making up some real nice packages to mail to EA i tell ya.

Thats too funny...

Yeah Poo its a sad day in UO. You know whats even worse? The vendors most of these people bought these things from, are still up and running. They are restocking as fast as people are buying from them. Do you think these vendors are afraid? Not one bit. Because they are probably on dummy accounts. They will continue to sale until they get caught and start selling again from a different account. They are not even closing accounts that are linked the same credit card. So a duper can have a dummy account holding the dupes and sale a few at a time using a real account. So what if the dummy account gets busted... Just open another one.

If you have a guild house and everyone stores 2 barbed kits in it and you have 10 members, guess what? Those 20 kits can make your house go poof...

 

[Poo]

i know.
its freaking me out!

hell, i got 2 barbed kits for christmas last year, now im thinking that present is not all it was cracked up to be.
cause i know the fella got like 50 of them in a bag from a merchant site.

11 years of play.
thousands of dollers invested.

lose everything from 2 barbed kits locked down in my sewing room in my castle.

load up the car wife, where driving down to EA's office!

 

[Tina Small]

I originally told Poo not to name me in his post. After reading it I said what the hell. I have nothing to hide.

I bought gold from brokers in the past to purchase items in-game. Had a good well-paying job and I guess I wanted nice stuff like everyone around me. Well, I got burned. One of my accounts was banned today and the only explanation I can get is that I was in possession of a multitude of highly illegal items.

Thinking back, all I can come up with is being stupid and buying gold from a broker. Bought a little more than usual when I got the annual bonus and we were getting ready to set up on Origin to play. Origin's pretty lousy for shopping, so I figured I'd buy stuff on Atlantic and GL and ship it there for my characters. All I bought was arties and nice armor and weapons. Didn't even think about buying runic tools because I knew it would be a long long time until I had crafters there capable of using them.

Well, I guess I was stupid and I guess I was greedy. Should have spent my time gold farming to buy all the nice shinies. I never duped a thing in my life and don't even know how to do it. I'm guilty though of buying gold and then turning around to buy some arties, I guess.

I'm in the process now of closing down the rest of my accounts. I can't stomach the thought of continuing to play using the other accounts, wondering every day if one of the rest of them is going to get banned too. And knowing that if if happens, that EA's too lazy or incompetent to give me any kind of real explanation as to why.

Flame away, if you're so inclined. At this point I don't care. I wasn't going to post anything at all but figured perhaps it was worth "exposing" myself so all the rest of you that were stupid and lazy and bought gold from brokers in the past couple of months like I did can now sit and wonder if you're next.

 

[Poo]

see the thing is, all of us in the guild did the same thing.
we all purchased gold and transfer tokens from the merchants.
we all purchased gear and we all sent gold and gear over to start up our guys for the faction fighting.

and Tina gets nailed.

so whos next?
me.

hell or two of our guild mates are Mods here on stratics, wonder if they are worried, i should log into TS and hear everyone see if they are all freaking out.

its crazy.
buy items, pay the going rate, get banned for buying items.

this isnt the way to do buisness.
then again, in 11 years when has the beast masters at UO ever listened to us.

Tina Small is leaving.
that is 21 accounts people.
21 accounts!!!!!!

is that sick.
yup.
is that sicker then me playing for 11 years.
nope.
is that a sad day for UO.
you bet your ass it is.

when staples of our community pack it in because they are afraid to play for fear of getting banned for SHOPPING in game......

bah!

 

[Snakeman]

And we thought it couldn't get any worse after the "Poo" name problem . EA has gone , they go from one extreme to another. They are attacking the END user when they should be targeting the SUPPLIER. Again, what can we expect from EA... have they Honestly done anything correctly in stopping duping or towards/on dupers on their previous attempts in the past? Couple of house burnings but they were right back on other accounts.. It's sad

 

[timbeOFbaja]

People don't dupe a lot of high end armor. They dupe arties and checks. So if you did/do buy gold, launder the checks immediately and don't stockpile arties. If you need to have a lot of artifacts, as in your case, then buy from people selling them (I can't see dupers spending the time standing at the bank selling) or, do what I did, and approach people wearing what you want and make them an offer.

Also, I know of another few guilds who transfer shards a lot for PvP and they all use transfer tokens. Wouldn't that be cheaper and more effective?

 

[JC the Builder]

With hammers being as low as 15 million gold, it isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility for someone to have a good stock of them. I know I was considering purchasing some more and could have easily scooped up two dozen or more. So I hope they are just not going by the number of hammers someone owned unless it was in the hundreds.

 

[Maximus Neximus]

With hammers being as low as 15 million gold, it isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility for someone to have a good stock of them. I know I was considering purchasing some more and could have easily scooped up two dozen or more. So I hope they are just not going by the number of hammers someone owned unless it was in the hundreds.

A quote from Jeremy in another thread...

"A runic? No. Two or three? Naw. Thirty? Probably, yeah."

 

[Dor of Sonoma]

Ack...

Now you have me freaked out, too.

My account is currently lapsed (due to lack of funds), but now I am wondering!

I mean...okay, as everyone knows, I am a cheapskate ingame, as well as out. (okay, so I'm broke ) I have never purchased gold, and never frequent vendors. Ever. Not in eleven years. I have no personal use for flashy thingies or heaps of gold.

However! I do possess quite a few oddities and rares, that I hold in trust for the shard and/or departed players. Players either bring them to me as gifts, or leave their stuff to me in their 'wills', knowing that anything in my hands will not be sold or traded. If they ever return, it will be right where they left it...

*shivers*

What happens if one or more of those items turn out to be dubious? Am I doomed now?

 

[Poo]

With hammers being as low as 15 million gold, it isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility for someone to have a good stock of them. I know I was considering purchasing some more and could have easily scooped up two dozen or more. So I hope they are just not going by the number of hammers someone owned unless it was in the hundreds.

Tina had no hammers, no runics, no kits.

the account had like 5 mill in checks on it and all the armour and items on the characters she purchased from venders.

so start the panic now people.
its no "15 hammers and more and your banned"
its "you have duped in your hands, you are guilty, Judge Dread will execute you on the spot"

 

[Oriana]

The way I read it, is if you don't have copious amounts you should be fine. I doubt you have enough in your collection to be in danger. I have some rares and a lot of oddieties at our Museum on Baja, and I'm not worried.

*hugs* Dor

Ori

 

[JC the Builder]

so start the panic now people.
its no "15 hammers and more and your banned"
its "you have duped in your hands, you are guilty, Judge Dread will execute you on the spot"

I do have one Valorite Hammer left over from when I was buying them a few months ago. I'm pretty sure they were duping them then. So it isn't automatic that you have one you get banned. They probably put in some tracking code to find out who was making them and who was buying a lot.

 

[packrat]

Get this.. Here is a snap shot of a barbed kit seller.. My modem is acting up so I cant do much because I keep getting booted. I noticed this barbed kit dealer selling kits. He had 5 a few minutes later 0. Go back a lil while later he has 5 again. In two days he has sold over 20. Who gets busted? The ones buying it and the one sales it? He is like the energizer bunny. He keeps going and going...

Look on the bottom left. There is one item in the bag. Now look on the bottom right. Look at the time.
Look on the bottom left on the second pic. 5 items in the bag. Look how long it took him to restock. Now get this. I have been watching him for two day. He has sold over 20 kits. And from what I am hearing he has vendors on other shards.

 

[Bluebottle]

-snip -
What happens if one or more of those items turn out to be dubious? Am I doomed now?

Double-ack, for a while myself and Cynewulf used to camp IDOCs and picked up quite a few choice bits n pieces. One large tower had a chest containing 140 gold boxes which simply due to the large number, we knew better than to cart off!! I'm sure other IDOC campers would have snagged them in a hurry and to heck with the consequences however!

 

[timbeOFbaja]

The kits are probably from scripters, not dupers. If you have 20 accounts all with crafters on every shard logging on automatically every day you're going to pull in, what, 400 bods per day per shard.

 

[Ashyn]

hahhahaha, like seriouslly, if ya heard this frail old lady in team speak knitting away and drinking honeyed tea youd be laughing your asses of right now!

Too funny (the wording, not the incident).

-Ashyn

 

[Sarphus]

Did she have a bunch of char xfers?

I suspect people were duping char xfers.

I think quitting is the wrong move for her. Think about it. It doesn't make any sense to quit for fear of being banned if you're not going to keep buying excesses of top end items for really low prices.

It sounds like she bought a ton of items, gold and xfer tokens; probably taking her over the threshold of a reasonable number of dupes.

If she just plays with what she has, she should be fine. Also, if none of the rest of you got banned, you should be able to work together to suit up her character pretty easily.

Decisions made when you're upset are often bad ones...

 

[Aurelius]

They probably put in some tracking code to find out who was making them and who was buying a lot.

I'm inclined to believe that is the case, and is part of the truly sloppy thinking that goes on at EA/Mythic. Because people had a lot of in-game gold, saw several items for sale relatively cheap, and bought them, they are more suitable for banning than the person who saw only one or two, and spent most of their cash on those?

The real problem was EA/Mythic did not delete the illegal item before it got as far as a vendor or other trade system. No amount of dodging or spin gets around that, and no smokescreens about 'look, we're banning people so we must be marvellous' will cover it up.

People are being punished, their reputations damaged and their integrity questioned, primarily because EA/Mythic have been both incompetent and lazy. Some 'cheats' are getting caught - but hey, ban two thousand accounts at random and you'll catch some cheats in there too! World of difference between 'doing something' and 'doing something right'.

 

[AirmidCecht]

Ack...

Now you have me freaked out, too.

My account is currently lapsed (due to lack of funds), but now I am wondering!

I mean...okay, as everyone knows, I am a cheapskate ingame, as well as out. (okay, so I'm broke ) I have never purchased gold, and never frequent vendors. Ever. Not in eleven years. I have no personal use for flashy thingies or heaps of gold.

However! I do possess quite a few oddities and rares, that I hold in trust for the shard and/or departed players. Players either bring them to me as gifts, or leave their stuff to me in their 'wills', knowing that anything in my hands will not be sold or traded. If they ever return, it will be right where they left it...

*shivers*

What happens if one or more of those items turn out to be dubious? Am I doomed now?

Dor,

I run a community house and have also been entrusted with many items to hold for others til they return, but just in case they didn't wanted me to use it for community purposes. I have a community box that when it works (lockdown box issues!) people are able to drop items in for others. I have also been offered items from players I know better than to accept things from and have denied them politely with no offense taken.

I'm not concerned at all. Not one lil bit. Maybe I should be but I don't get the high end dupitydooda stuff anyways. The items I have been asked to hold? Maybe but Jeremy has stated it's not the valorite hammer here or there, its the red flaggin, omg 160 duped items in a bag buried under the chests and pillow made couch that screams cheater that they focused on.

Did some get caught in the net innocently? Who am I to say or judge. I know about as much as to someone's true character here as I do with a work mate that I see every day and who could be lifting 20's from the petty cash box. The great part is that it's not up to me to decide. I can sympathize or wag a finger based on what I read and still have no clue at all.

 

[Poo]

seriouslly!

you ever watch Futurerama?

you know that old lady that runs the robot factory, whats her name, Mom in the show?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mom_Futurama_fatsuit.jpg

thats what Tina Small sounds like in TS.

"ohh dear is me, ohhh dear, *sipps tea* i think i just moving shot killed that guy, ohhh dear..... what time is it? is it cold in here?"

(gotta get my pokes in on Tina cause shes so depressed right now)

 

[timbeOFbaja]

seriouslly!
"ohh dear is me, ohhh dear, *sipps tea* i think i just moving shot killed that guy, ohhh dear..... what time is it? is it cold in here?"

She sounds like Mrs Butterworth?

 

[Satanatra]

I think people should stop freaking out and get the picture.

We arent talking about someone who bought 1 arty on a vendor in luna. From what is said, we are talking about someone who bought enough arties and gold from a merchant to supply a whole guild setting up on a shard?

What does that mean? 500m gold and 8 HoM, 8 Aof, 8 orny, 8 totem... etc?

I think you just got a reality check about what you have actually been doing.
You may have felt innocent, but you have been mass buying duped items and supporting the cheats.

 

[Tina Small]

Did she have a bunch of char xfers?

I suspect people were duping char xfers.

I think quitting is the wrong move for her. Think about it. It doesn't make any sense to quit for fear of being banned if you're not going to keep buying excesses of top end items for really low prices.

It sounds like she bought a ton of items, gold and xfer tokens; probably taking her over the threshold of a reasonable number of dupes.

If she just plays with what she has, she should be fine. Also, if none of the rest of you got banned, you should be able to work together to suit up her character pretty easily.

Decisions made when you're upset are often bad ones...

Nope, didn't have a bunch of character transfer tokens. At one time I had several codes that I bought directly from EA because I was going to give them to faction guildmates (a guild other than Poo's) to move from Napa to GL last fall. However, I slowly used them up in the interim as we (i.e., Poo's guild) got established on different shards to do factions. I can't even remember the last time I bought any kind of token from a broker. I know I've bought them in the past, one at a time here or there, but never in bulk except directly from EA through their account support site. The one I used to tell people about when they had trouble buying from the official UO game codes site.

The reason I'm quitting is that I feel like someone kicked the chair out from under me. The account that got banned had a lot of crummy characters on it that I'd made for holiday trading and just a couple of good characters...a peace tamer on Baja, a bard/lockpick/thief on Legends that was 1.8 away from finishing lockpicking the hard way one darn gain per day, an archer in training on Legends, and a fully trained up sigil thief/remover/tracker/detector on GL that I was hoping to get into factions once I figured out which guild/faction to put her in. Had taken a break from factions for a while and had been sitting back and watching to see what was going on with the thieves. Guess I'll never get the chance to use her now.

And if anyone's wondering how/why I had so many accounts, all I can tell you is that I loved UO. A number of the accounts were ones I adopted for a couple of good friends when they stopped playing or took a break. I took over making the payments in hopes it would motivate them to come back. I bought one of the accounts a couple of years ago because I couldn't stand not being able to dye my leather gear or rune books. Another account I bought from an acquaintance who quit playing and was trying to scrape up some money for some real life bills he had to pay. Three accounts I set up for family members who didn't end up playing for long. And a couple of accounts I set up for guild housing. I managed to get a few houses located next to each other on Baja and always hoped someday to set up vendors at one or two of them to sell plants and other deco stuff. But I got burned out cross-pollinating and growing the plants and just as that happened, a bunch of guildies on Baja quit playing. Kinda made me lose my steam, but I didn't want to give up the houses either.

So darn it all for getting hooked on this game to the point of having a ridiculous number of accounts. And darn it for falling in love with factions and enjoying the heck out of Poo and his friends and their mad scheme to take over factions on a bunch of shards and trying to help by providing the houses. And darn it most of all for thinking it was okay to buy gold from brokers instead of spending all my time hunting to make gold to get gear for all those characters spread across the game.

I suspect the fact that only one of my accounts was banned, even though they all were tied to the same credit card, means this was supposed to be somewhat of a token slap on the wrist or a warning shot across the bow. Unfortunately, because EA will not give me the courtesy of telling me what made up the "multitude of highly illegal items" I had in my possession, I just don't have the stomach to continue playing. In their eyes, I guess I'm only worthy of a canned answer and having the following put on my account as the reason for banning it: "Suspected Misconduct - Exploitation."

Oh well...I guess that's life and sometimes it just sucks and all you can do is move on.

 

[Tina Small]

I think people should stop freaking out and get the picture.

We arent talking about someone who bought 1 arty on a vendor in luna. From what is said, we are talking about someone who bought enough arties and gold from a merchant to supply a whole guild setting up on a shard?

What does that mean? 500m gold and 8 HoM, 8 Aof, 8 orny, 8 totem... etc?

I think you just got a reality check about what you have actually been doing.
You may have felt innocent, but you have been mass buying duped items and supporting the cheats.

No, I wasn't buying enough stuff to set up a whole guild. Just my own characters that I wanted to start on a new shard...tamer, tailor/smith, carpenter, miner/LJ, archer, macer. Poo and my other guildmates bought their own stuff and sometimes I moved it for them. However, what's ironic is that I didn't move any of it with characters on the account that was banned. Nope, just stupidly used a character on that account to buy gold with on GL and to hold a house on Napa and make a few other decent characters.

I guess using my real money to buy gold from brokers and then turning around and buying stuff from Luna vendors as often as I did in the last 6-9 months to get established on a couple of shards was just plain stupid. Stupid and greedy.

Oh wanted to add this: I've never owned a crimson cincture. Never owned an orny. Never owned a Hat of the Magi. The only Armor of Fortune I have is one locked down in my Baja house. It's a cursed one I got off a grim reaper.

 

[Poo]

I think people should stop freaking out and get the picture.

We arent talking about someone who bought 1 arty on a vendor in luna. From what is said, we are talking about someone who bought enough arties and gold from a merchant to supply a whole guild setting up on a shard?

What does that mean? 500m gold and 8 HoM, 8 Aof, 8 orny, 8 totem... etc?

I think you just got a reality check about what you have actually been doing.
You may have felt innocent, but you have been mass buying duped items and supporting the cheats.

dude, get a shoe horn and extricate your head from..... the dark place it is.

we EACH member of our guild got out own gold and purchased out own supplies.
what did Tina have on her account, lets see.
she purchased 50 mill, and that was months ago.
when she got banned she had like 5 mill in checks and the suits on her toons.
all of those suits purchased from venders.

so there is no 500 mill, no 10 HoM, no 8 Ornys and 8 totems.
hell, i feel confident is sayin there where NO HoM, NO ornys, NO totems.

THAT IS WHAT WE SHOULD ALL BE SCARED OF!!!!!

there wasnt anything on that account that all of us dont have on our accounts right this second.
armour and generic artys (boomsticks, hearts of the lions, totem of the voids)

this is why i think this is bogus.

"I think you just got a reality check about what you have actually been doing.
You may have felt innocent, but you have been mass buying duped items and supporting the cheats"

your on crack.
because i dont like to waste my game play hunting and making millions, im rich and can afford to buy gold and buy the items i want to play with, this makes me guilty?

i dont want duped items!
i dont want duped items in the game.

but i DO want the freedome to be able to buy the items i want and not have to worry about getting banned wheni dont even know the items im buying ARE duped.

they are punishing people for things they had no control over.
and that should make everyone who plays this game afraid.

there isnt one item in this game that you can buy that shouldnt make your worried for your account in todays game.
every item on venders could be duped and you wouldnt ever know.

 

[Ashyn]

Maybe but Jeremy has stated it's not the valorite hammer here or there, its the red flaggin, omg 160 duped items in a bag buried under the chests and pillow made couch that screams cheater that they focused on.

Don't be hatin' the deco!

 

[Lady Michelle]

I been sitting here for over an hour in shock not knowing what to say when I seen that Tina Small was on of the people that got banned,This is sad that they go after someone like Tina for buying alot of stuff on a game.

 

[packrat]

I feel your pain Tina. I didn't get banned but stories like this make me not want to play either. I would hate to get labeled a cheat and a thief for something I didn't intentionally do. My integrity means the world to me. In 9 years of playing UO the only thing that I did wrong was name a beetle "you are ugly" and someone at an IDOC reported me. The GM showed up and told me to rename it. lol
After 30 years in law enforcement anyone that knows me, would tell you I would be the last one to break the rules or cheat. I had 4 accounts and closed one a couple of months ago when they made major changes and didnt tell us why and we still dont have the answer to them. When the spring cleaning is over, I am going to get my items for the points I have and close that account.
And the more I read and the less I want to play. I have been reading poo's post for years and if he says you are innocent then thats good enough for me...

 

[Ashyn]

Double-ack, for a while myself and Cynewulf used to camp IDOCs and picked up quite a few choice bits n pieces. One large tower had a chest containing 140 gold boxes which simply due to the large number, we knew better than to cart off!! I'm sure other IDOC campers would have snagged them in a hurry and to heck with the consequences however!

Another judgment call. When I played, the gold chests were a fetish of mine. I camped IDOC's for them AND purchased them from vendors. When I quit, I had 120 gold boxes. The account I had prior to the last one, I did the same thing - collected gold boxes. My goal was to own every gold box in UO (yeah, it was a joke among my friends).

No one on here has a right to dictate what is an appropriate amount of anything. Who is anyone to say that someone shouldn't like or save something just because it's an unusual amount?

My son would go around buying barbed runics at "normal" costs from vendors. He'd get a stock pile of them and use my crafter to burn them all off at one time. One may see his ownership as "OMG He must Dupe!!!" I saw it as, "he only had limited time to use my toons, so he gathered up for those few minutes of down time I'd take"

 

[AesSedai]

- Poo, aside from your various bottom-hinded comments (hey, I was laughing at how you casually snuck them into your last post - but I know, I know, Poo was an innocent naming for Winnie.. yes, I still recall the myth that made the name) , yours and Tina's (together, like in a guild) situation seems like the one I would love to hear more details about.
So bring me some tea and crackers please.

(Un)fortunately we know that the truth will only, if ever, be shared between yourselves and EA. The only way you can ever look bad is if you post something they tell any of you; and telling you too much just might make it easier for others to evade being caught cheating in the first place.

But still, I am as curious as ever to see whether this attack on the black market of cheating may kill the desire to freely trade in UO
...
and that's why your(s) situation sounds like one I would love to hear more details about.

 

[FrejaSP]

Tina Small is leaving.
that is 21 accounts people.
21 accounts!!!!!!

Why would someone need 21 accounts with 7 chars? That's 147 chars and 21 houses

It also sounds very expensive to me.

 

[Der Rock]

so i log onto icq today and there waiting for me is a icq from a guild mate and very good personal friend.

she had one of her accounts banned.

wow.
i was shocked.
ive played with this person for a couple years now and out of all of us she is the grandmother of the group (besides the fact that is actually IS a grandmother!)

so what has this to do with me.
well, a lot.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------


so, what u have learnd?
Dont use a older person(grandmother), wich didnt know whats going on, for ure
illegal actions.
show more respect for older people.

 

[Tina Small]

When you're 49 years old, have no more kids in the house, have a good income, don't smoke, don't drink, don't gamble, drive an old car, husband drives an old car, and your mortgage has been paid off for many years, maybe you have a little bit more discretionary cash for entertainment than others might. Putting the accounts on a 6-month billing cycle to lower the cost and spread out the payments also helps.

 

[Tina Small]

so, what u have learnd?
Dont use a older person(grandmother), wich didnt know whats going on, for ure
illegal actions.
show more respect for older people.

Haha...on that note, I'm going to bed. Us old folks need our sleep.

 

[Beldon]

Why would someone need 21 accounts with 7 chars? That's 147 chars and 21 houses

It also sounds very expensive to me.

147 characters? Sounded like a lot more than that. They have characters on more than one shard. Read POO's thread about how deep is your addiction?

 

[Ashyn]

When you're 49 years old, have no more kids in the house, have a good income, don't smoke, don't drink, don't gamble, drive an old car, husband drives an old car, and your mortgage has been paid off for many years, maybe you have a little bit more discretionary cash for entertainment than others might. Putting the accounts on a 6-month billing cycle to lower the cost and spread out the payments also helps.

Tina, don't bother trying to explain. The younger generation thinks all bling bling should be touchy feely and have no concept of "mental joy in intangible things."

 

[Fizzleton]

hmm... very scary the whole thing. First: there seem to be well known veteran players targeted, players with a long history in uo, and accounts that of course have, due to the age, high-end items on them. Second: Either these vets are talking bs, and EA knows what they do; then we have a player-base that is corrupted to the core. Or EA hasn't a clue at all, and is banning here and there for almost nothing - what would mean that anything could happen to anybody who has a veteran like account.

So if EA was right in it's doing; why, then, do we watch the dupers and vendors selling dupes going right away with seemingly no way to stop them?

 

[Lady Aalia]

Haha...on that note, I'm going to bed. Us old folks need our sleep.

Make sure you send EA one of those Forms to plea your case...if its just as you say there shouldnt be any reason...(if its like that)

You also said your holding other peoples houses...maye one of them had stuff they wherent suppose to have?

Or it really was the gold.....

eather way make sure you sent in a form to let them know your banning wasnt justified and they will recheck it

 

[Nyte Doombringer]

As far as I know its not against UO TOS to buy gold. Right? I mean UO started the trend for buying gold and items via ebay.
Again my point here is this, why is it our responsibility as paying customers to have to know what we buy is illegal or not? Isnt that what the people that run the game are for, to make sure the game is safe and free of dupes and hacks? I guess most of these games have Auction Houses, not player run vendors first of all.

THE WHOLE POINT HERE IS IT IS NOT OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW ALL THIS ...

We pay EA to take care of this by getting rid of the dupes and hacks. If they are in the game, on player run vendors to sell, that is part of the game and we as players are doing what the game allows, buying items on vendors, or from other people. There is no way of knowing whether the armor you buy is duped or not. I mean i don't know the prices of anything atm as I just came back to the game. Why should I run around all the vendors comparing prices, searching web sites if I want to buy armor for my char or whatever? I may have plenty of gold but not time, so I might go to Luna because I know there are a lot of vendors in one area. I dont care about how much stuff cost, i just want to equip my char and get on with playing. This whole thing is ridiculous. Go play WoW, Lotro, AOC or any other relatively newer game like this and you dont have to worry about the items you buy. There is no duping. This game is over 10 years old and the code is so old that anyone that has knowledge of coding and programing ect can fig out how to hack it. There is nothing that EA can do to stop them, because if it was they would have 5 or so years ago when duping started. People will always fig out how to hack this old game.
So what does EA do, instead of taking care of the dupers they start banning people that have bought items in the game, provided by the game as this game give the ability to have player run vendors. So we are supposed to know that everything we buy, get as a gift, find at a idoc is legit? There is no way you can do that.
The sad thing is there is nothing we can do about it either. EA is like god and they decide what is right and wrong and you cant fight them, you cant get talk to them about anything, no one will even discuss anything with anyone. You just have to accept it and move on.

 

[Bannon]

Poo and Tina, I'm in complete agreement with the two of you. I too have bought gold from "trusted" sources, have three accounts with large houses, and a host of artifacts and runics that I've purchased legitimately with my in game gold. Every single item was purchased at or near market price. I've been careful not to buy the bags of ten barbed kits from that obviously fraudulent vendor in Luna on Pacific, but I do buy and sell items at the bank for a profit. I was a weapons vendor since before AOS with the Pacific Trading Company, and I now deal in artifacts and tokens along with my usual stash of highly prized weapons.

What assurance do I have that I am not under investigation myself? I have done nothing wrong. I buy low and sell high. I do not buy rediculously low. I do make a tidy profit.

Like you, Poo, I'd pay RL cash to ensure that I will not be banned by this ludicrous witch hunt. Please go through my accounts, delete anything I've purchased that was duped. Please. I still hold this game in very high regard after 8 years and I don't know what I'd do without it. (yup, I'm an addict.)

I look forward to seeing Jeremy in person at the Seattle Town Hall. Perhaps she can shed some light on this despicable situation then.

 

[Zofinur]

'YOU WHERE IN POSSESSION OF A MULTITUDE OF HIGHLLY ILLEGAL ITEMS'

Since EA till now wasnt able to answer me which kind of illegal items i did own in a multitude i came to the conclusion that this must be checks i earned when i sold my legal items...

I didnt trade bulk runics
I never owned a hammer better than agapite (and that has been less than 5 in total)
I never had more check than 100M; must have been 60M when i was banned.
I even never crosssharded on my account.
Finally i never was involved in trades for RL-cash. e.g. means i never did buy gold!

Only thing i did own in multitudes was bods. I was addicted to bods, and so i might even have 50+ minor hammers (up 2 bronze)

Still waiting for an official statement which "multitude of highlly illegal items" i did own.

 

[Rosalinda]

And from what I am hearing he has vendors on other shards.

Yep, here's the thread you want, for the BR2.0 vendors:
http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=93691

 

[It Lives]

I have some magic beans/ Ill sell em cheap.

 

[Nyte Doombringer]

'YOU WHERE IN POSSESSION OF A MULTITUDE OF HIGHLLY ILLEGAL ITEMS'

Since EA till now wasnt able to answer me which kind of illegal items i did own in a multitude i came to the conclusion that this must be checks i earned when i sold my legal items...

I didnt trade bulk runics
I never owned a hammer better than agapite (and that has been less than 5 in total)
I never had more check than 100M; must have been 60M when i was banned.
I even never crosssharded on my account.
Finally i never was involved in trades for RL-cash. e.g. means i never did buy gold!

Only thing i did own in multitudes was bods. I was addicted to bods, and so i might even have 50+ minor hammers (up 2 bronze)

Still waiting for an official statement which "multitude of highlly illegal items" i did own.

Again I ask, how are you supposed to know this? How do you know that the checks someone paided you for an item where duped??? Why do we even have player run vendors in this game or the ability to make items to sell to others if this is what will happen to us??
If I sell something irl, anything to someone by putting an ad in the paper and the person pays me with counterfeit money, how do i know this. I am not a counterfeit expert, as long as the money is green thats all i know. Hell i dont even remember what presidents are on what bills, now that i live in Sweden and dont use USD anymore. LOL But is it my fault that i took counterfeit money?

 

[RoycroftLS]

Forgive some of us if we aren't exactly trusting of what people have to say about themselves in light of being banned. We've all seen the "Even Mother Teresa looked up to my impeccable qualities" argument before, and half the time it's from people guilty as sin.

There are two sides to every story, and because EA has a policy of not discussing things in public it's impossible to get the other half of the details. I'm not saying that in your case that you are lying, but even the most vehement of arguments is still only one side's version of the events, and as such we have to take it with a grain of salt.

As for what you have stated about your specific plight, I've always been surprised that people don't think more carefully about where gold sellers get their stock. The fact is that dupers/scripters can't realize their goal of real cash until they sell their gold for dollars. They don't care if they sell it directly to the average player, or at a discount to a legitimate gold seller. And since dupers can make as much profit as they desire, it's likely that a large amount of gold on the selling market has some connection to an illegitimate source.

All it takes is one careless or uncaring person in the gold supply chain and suddenly the average player has tainted gold. To borrow a popular phrase: when you trade with someone, you've traded with all the people they've ever traded with. A little bit of vigilance goes a long way.